Frontier Medicines, based on UC Berkeley research, has launched with $67m in series A funding co-led by Deerfield Management, MPM Capital and Droia Oncology Ventures.

Frontier Medicines, a US-based biopharmaceutical developer based on research at University of California (UC) Berkeley, launched on Tuesdy with a $67m series A round co-led by healthcare-focused investment firm Deerfield Management.
Cancer-focused fund manager Droia Oncology Ventures and life sciences investment firm MPM Capital co-led the round, which also featured venture capital firm Data Collective’s DCVC Bio fund, RA Capital Management and several unnamed investors.
Frontier Medicines will target binding pockets on the surfaces of biological proteins, dubbed hotspots, for the purposes of small molecule drug development, using a drug development platform powered by machine learning and other computational methods.
The spinout will initially focus on delivering oncological drugs. It has already built a database of human proteins, including many that were previously thought to be undruggable.
Frontier’s co-founders include Daniel Nomura, associate professor of molecular and cell biology, chemistry, nutritional science and technology, and Robert Zoncu, assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley.
The two academics co-founded the company together with chief executive Chris Varma, who was a venture partner with MPM Capital until April 2019.
MPM Capital previously supplied seed funding as a founding investment. Further details could not be ascertained.